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Published: October 28th 2011
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Our last day in Berlin started with a bit of a disaster.
We headed out just before 10am to catch S Bahn trains to the Jewish area in behind the general area of the Reichstag and stopped just up the road from our apartment to take some cash out of an ATM machine. NO CARD in my belt bag!!!!! Shock and horror and some very quick thinking as to the last time it was used. Lunch time yesterday at a restaurant on Kurfurstedamm. Used the spare card that Joy carries to get some cash and it gave us the amount asked for which at least suggested there was still money on the card, a good sign!! No one had cleaned the quite considerable amount of Euros out of it yet!!! Back to the apartment and onto the internet to check any activity on the card and it was very satisfying to see that there had been no activity SO FAR!!!
Quick check of the receipts from yesterday and found the one from the restaurant where the card had been used and phoned them. Spoke to a lady who spoke some English who, I’m pleased to say, told me my card was
indeed at their establishment. Needless to say I was extremely relieved!!!and said we would be in sometime during the afternoon to pick it up.
That out of the way we headed by S Bahn to the old Jewish Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse (where there were a number of Jewish sites in the vicinity as well). Joy really wanted to have a look at some of these and get photos. The old Synagogue dates back to the mid 1800s and was the centre for the large Berlin Jewish population. It was severely damaged by the Nazis in the Progoms of 1938 and then even more severely damaged by the Allied bombings in 1943. It was basically left in ruins and the Jewish community that was left used another Synagogue nearby for their worship etc. In 1958 most of the old building was pulled down due to the dilapidated state of it but it was reconstructed as a memorial soon after that. It now just houses a museum of Jewish life and culture in Berlin but was very interesting to look through.
We then beat the feet to another memorial a few blocks away. This was a ‘statue’ like memorial to the
Jews killed in the Holocaust under the Nazi regime and stands outside a very old Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse. It was another very old part of the city and it was great to just wander around another part of the city taking in the architecture etc.
We were then going to take a train to the new Holocaust memorial in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gates but we spotted some other interesting buildings while walking to the station and got sidetracked with the necessary photos and then found we were closer to the Holocaust memorial anyway so we kept on walking. Of course it looked a lot closer on the map than in reality but what’s a couple of kilometres when you have been walking so many of them????
We walked right up Unter Den Linden to the British Embassy, which is right next to the American Embassy and where the newish Holocaust memorial is located (well very nearby anyway.) I’ll include a photo of this memorial but it was built just a few years ago at a cost of 25 Million Euro amidst a lot of controversy apparently. It consists of hundreds of ‘concrete’ blocks the size
of a grave and they are all at different heights above the ground. The pathways between the blocks are very up and down and uneven and apparently this was designed to be disorientating for visitors as a reminder of what it must have been like for those taken to the Death Camps etc. Some of the controversy centred around the fact that the rectangular concrete blocks were made with a special chemical in the mixture that was supposed to make it easy to remove any graffiti from them. This, of course was a very expensive chemical and it was then discovered that the company supplying it and making heaps of money was the same company (several reincarnations removed) as the one that supplied the poison gas to the Nazis for their extermination camps during WW2. Apparently the company ‘fessed up and agreed to supply the chemical for no cost.
Anyway it is another very poignant memorial in this city of many, many memorials. We then visited the museum which is actually underground under part of the memorial blocks and again, another very moving place to visit when you are again confronted with something that happened not that long ago in history.
After having some lunch in a nearby restaurant we again beat the feet for Potsdamer Platz to catch the U Bahn into Kurfurstendamm to pick up the Visa card from the restaurant. We did some sight seeing on the way, while walking, at the Sony Centre that has an amazing huge sail like structure over an outdoor court area but it is very high above the ground.
Got into the K easily enough and more walking to the restaurant where the same waiter was working and he recognised us straight away. He reckoned I’d left it on the table when I left but I tend to think he had left it in his mobile card machine that they all use over here…..BUT anyway I got the card back with no damage done. Obviously I’ve made a solemn pledge to be more careful in the future!!!! We even sat down in the restaurant and had a plate of good old German Apple Strudel with cream and ice cream each just to round things off.
Lots more walking to get back to the bottom of the K to catch the U Bahn back to Potsdamer and another fifteen minutes walking back from there to the apartment. So as you can see we have still been doing a lot of miles wearing down the shoe leather. Might have to buy new shoes before we get home!!!!!
Got back to the apartment around 5pm and we are having a ‘quiet’ time while I write this and before we head out for our 7.45pm appointment at the Reichstag TONIGHT.
I’m going to get this blog published now before we go out tonight as we will no doubt be late tonight and we have to be up fairly early in the morning to get to the airport to fly to Venice (via Munich) and the start of the next leg of our journey. ONLY A MONTH TO GO!!!!
Trust that all those at home are enjoying the election campaign. We are missing it for the second election running as we were overseas during the whole of the 2008 election as well and of course we are missing the adverts and all the electioneering terribly!!!! (NOT)
Catch you again from Venice although not sure exactly when as we do not have internet at our apartment in Venice so will have to rely on Internet Cafes.
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Craig
non-member comment
card or camera?
at least it wasn't your camera...but you are heading to the usual camera losing place next so be careful!!! Sounds like your German trip was fantastic looking forward to hearing about the rest. Have you heard anything about the situation in Eygpt?